Tuesday, April 11, 2017

IFI's Laurie Higgins Makes Me Retch

“Higgins wants children to ‘learn’ that their gay classmates are diseased little perverts and then she claims that anti-bullying programs are unnecessary.”

Hate groups converge. American Family Association's “news” blog is promoting content from Laurie Higgins of Illinois Family Institute. The post is titled: “Activist: You don't need GLSEN to oppose bullying” by Bob Kellogg. Kellogg explains:

A pro-family leader is once again warning parents about the annual GLSEN-sponsored "Day of Silence" taking place next week in thousands of schools across the U.S.

The Gay and Lesbian Straight Education Network's observance supposedly protests bullying in schools. "[It] helps bring us closer to making anti-LGBT bullying, harassment, and name-calling unacceptable in U.S. schools," says the event website.

Warning parents of what exactly?

Cultural issues writer Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute contends the event is just a pretense that promoters have been using for more than two decades to politicize during instructional time.

"Everyone opposes bullying of any students for any reason. You don't need an event sponsored by GLSEN to oppose bullying in public schools," she argues. "Every school has anti-bullying policy; every school has disciplinary consequences for bullying."

Actually she is wrong. Policy is one thing. Getting students to understand that bullying is wrong and why it is wrong is quite another. In addition to being sanctimonious, Higgins is a fool if she thinks that anti-bullying policies effectively stop bullying. She has devoted a career to demonizing gay people, replacing science with superstition, which is one of the reasons that bullying exists in the first place. And right on cue:

Higgins explains the real reason for the event, which began back in 1996 on the University of Virginia campus.

"The central goal of this day is to silence conservative voices on perspectives on the nature and morality of homosexual activity," she says, "or the health risks embedded in the homosexual activity and in the responses to gender dysphoria."

So how many lies are in those two paragraphs? No, no one wants to silence anyone. We are content to teach kids the difference between right and wrong when it comes to how they treat their fellow students. There is nothing immoral about being gay nor is its nature anything different than heterosexuality. Nor, for that matter, are there “health risks embedded” in being gay. Being gay is not unhealthy. Unprotected sex is unhealthy for anyone. Intolerance and oppression are unhealthy, especially fragile gay children.

Higgins wants children to “learn” that their gay classmates are diseased little perverts and then she claims that anti-bullying programs are unnecessary. She should stop making them necessary. She still hasn't explained the danger that she is warning parents about. Kids being more civil? Or is she wed to the preposterous belief that sexual orientation is contagious? Why should parents keep their kids home and miss a day of school? What message does that send to their children about the importance of education?